


Gravity

by catty_the_spy



Series: Fortress of Glass [2]
Category: Dollhouse, Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Gen, Off-screen Character Death, On the Run, distrubing themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two small pieces in a very large game. Lisa, Ronald, and the Stargate Program.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> For the “bodyswap” prompt on my longfic bingo card. Dollhouse Fusion and companion to Child’s Play.

Her name was Lisa Park, and she was his sun.

Ronald Greer has never considered himself an overly poetic man, but Lisa was…everything. She was the sun and he was caught in her orbit, and if he could die sure in the knowledge of her love he would die a happy man.

Ron worked security for the government lab where Lisa worked. They get off around the same time, and more often than not they meet up after work for drinks or dinner or more carnal pursuits.

They weren’t perfect – Ron, for one, had been dishonorably discharged for wiping the floor with his CO. Still, he loved her, and she loved him, and it was enough.

 

* * *

 

“I know things,” Lisa whispers. Her hair is draped back over his shoulders. “Terrible things.”

“I’ve done terrible things,” he tells her, trying to reassuring. “I understand. Do you want to talk about it?”

Lisa is stiff as a board. He tries to massage the tension out of her shoulders, his hands ghosting over red marks he’s accidently left on her skin. They should be more careful, but it's easy to forget in the heat of the moment.

“If I tell anyone, they’ll kill me.”

“I’d kill them first.”

She shakes her head, settling into his chest. “Even you can’t fight off everyone. I couldn’t bear it if you died because of me.”

“I won’t. If I die, it’d be all on me.”

She lets out a shaky breath. He wishes he could see her face.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

“Me too.”

 

* * *

 

Icarus isn’t so bad. It’s pretty swanky for a place where people stare at microscopes all day.

It’s a subsidiary of the Stargate Program. He found that out after.

He gets in at five a.m. and takes over for Barnes. She always keeps the coffee on, so he has a cup while he watches the monitors.

Brody always gets there first, with bagels. He gives Ron a polite nod as he goes through the scanner. They make an exchange – coffee for bagels. Then it’s another nod and a “Have a good day.”

Lisa’s next, always trying to beat the sunrise. They talk for about twenty minutes before she swings by the greenhouses – horticulture is her fist love. Then she comes running back for the coffee she forgot and it’s off to the labs, studying cells for great justice or whatever it is she does; she isn’t allowed to tell.

Franklin is a son of a bitch, but Golding and Takihana are alright.  So is Volker – a little frosty now that Ron’s dating Lisa, but good people all the same.

Ron works alone. Government lab or no, they’re in the middle of Nowheresville, Nevada. Things are quiet, here, and the pay more than makes up for the half hour commute. It’s good enough.

 

* * *

 

There’s a man at Ronald’s hearing – middle aged, going grey fast. He’s been clicking his pen the whole time, only stopping to doodle every once in a while. Eventually Ron notices Jackson – still cold and aloof- is tapping his own pen. He manages to make out patterns in the exchange of clicks and taps. It’s nothing Ron’s familiar with, but he knows a code when he sees one.

Their faces don’t change. The old man still looks bored, twisting his swivel chair like a little kid. Jackson still looks stiff and cruel.

Eventually the big guy in the knitted cap starts drumming his knuckles, and the blonde officer coughs twice and clears her throat.

There’s a final tap from Jackson and then he stretches and yawns loudly, calling Lawrence’s attention.

“Are we really going to waste our time on this? It was one barely productive building in the middle of nowhere, and I have better things to do. Toss him on the street or dump him with Mackenzie. No one will believe him anyway. Or you could let Teal’c have him.” Jackson glances at the big guy. “At least then he’d be entertaining.”

“I have not been able to spar in some time,” Teal’c says. Tall dark and broody could snap Jackson in half.

Lawrence chuckles and everyone starts to pack up. “I like the way you think. Cheap and effective. Just don’t get him all over the place; no one wants a repeat of bodies in the rafters.”

Bodies in the rafters. IA would have a ball with this place.

 

Teal’c doesn’t speak to him after tossing him in the truck. He gets in the front with the blonde – his girlfriend? – and says “Everything has been prepared,”

They have him tied well and good. Ron tries to loosen them a bit for circulation’s sake. He keeps an ear on the front seat.

“-invited me to his wedding. I don’t know if I should go. I may not even _be_ here for one – our schedule gets crazy this month.”

“Did you and he not agree to remain friends?”

“Well yeah. It’s just awkward, what with everything.”

The blonde has a hand pressed to the skin behind her ear. Maybe she has a headache; that should slow her reaction time a bit.

“You should brace your feet against the door so you don’t slide around.” The blonde glances over her shoulder.

“No offence,” Ron says, “but I’m not exactly eager to take your advice.”

She grins. “Same old song and dance. Can you believe I missed this?”

 

* * *

 

“Could you help me bring in this box?” Volker asks.

In the parking lot, he starts piling things into Ron’s arms.

“I’m worried about Lisa. Has she said anything?”

Ron thinks about her pale face, her whisper in the dark, “I know things.”

He sighs. “She hasn’t said anything, but I’m worried to. Do you have any idea what it might be?”

Volker looks around nervously. Then he stares into the interior of his car. “Adam’s…found something. Some information about where our research goes. We think it’s what got Sarah taken away.”

Ron winces. Sarah Brightman had been hauled out of the building in the middle of her shift, ostensibly for a “random drug screening”. She’d gotten cagey a few weeks before, saying she saw something on a secure server. She never came back.

“He shouldn’t have said anything,” Volker says. “He should have kept his mouth shut. Normally Adam’s…normally he’s good at that, but this…he saved it, and showed it to us the last time we went out. Lisa’s been taking it kind of hard.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t say.” Volker gives the parking lot another suspicious glance. “To be honest, I shouldn’t have told you as much as I did. They might have my car bugged. Shit, what if I just got Adam killed?”

“Don’t,” Ron says when it looks like Volker’s about to panic. “Your cell phone’s more likely.”

Volker shrugs a shoulder, still looking a little wild eyed. “I took the battery out and left it in my desk. Lisa asked what I was doing, but I told her I’d dropped it in some water.”

“When we go back inside, turn your phone back on. I’ll talk to Lisa.”

 

* * *

 

“Here we go,” the blonde says and slams on the brakes. Ronald is dragged from the backseat into a black van. Daniel Jackson is waiting in the back.

“Fifteen minutes, Carter” the old man says from the front. Teal’c joins him.

The blonde – Carter – pulls out a file and tosses it on Ronald’s lap. “You’ll need to have this memorized by tomorrow morning. This is the key to your apartment.” She holds it up. It has a cap on it shaped like a flower. Hibiscus blossom maybe. Ron’s been picking these things up from Lisa. “You’ve been there three years; the landlord knows your face.”

She tosses the key on his lap and pulls out another. “You’re looking for a job to support your ailing grandmother. Key number two is to the storage bin where you’re keeping her things.” This one has a cap shaped like a rose. “She’s in a nursing home; you’ll visit her every two weeks. The information is in your file.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re applying for a job in a branch of the Stargate Program,” Jackson says. “You’ll be working security for a building in L.A. The details…will be provided during your interview.”

“We got you the interview,” Carter adds, “but it’s up to you to get the job.”

“And why in the world would I want to work for you? You killed Volker, you killed Lisa-”

“Lisa Park isn’t dead,” Jackson says, cutting Ron off, “and if you accept our offer you may have a chance of seeing her again.”

“I don’t need your help,” Ron growls and there’s an annoyed sigh from the front seat. They pull off the road.

“Sir we don’t have time for-”

The door slides open and the old man is standing there. “Look kid, either you come with us, get the job, and save your girlfriend, or you can leave right now and hope that eventually she finds you.”

He frees Ron’s hands.

Ron raises his eyebrows. “How do you know I won’t kill you?”

The man shrugs. “Feel free. It’d be nice to jump ship before my arthritis gets too bad.”

“ _Jack_ ,” Jackson groans.

“ _Daniel_ ,” ‘Jack’ replies. “Kid kills me? I wake up in a brand new body and its business as usual. He’s the only one of us who has anything to lose from being dead. ‘Cept maybe Teal’c.”

Ron takes a look at the file. The first thing he sees is the word “shiakt”, and that decides him.

“Where exactly are we headed?”

 

* * *

 

They pay for the laptop in cash, and the motel tell room with the same. It takes Lisa twenty minutes to open the drive.

They call it ‘shiakt’, but what it does is steal people’s brains.

“Seriously?” Ron says, because this is some Star Trek shit.

“Yeah, and….”

Fetuses in jars, dissected people, and lots and lots of organs in vats. Ron doesn’t get the bulk of the technical information, but he knows freaky shit when he sees it.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he says.

“Do you think they’ve tracked us to the hotel?”

“I mean that we’ve got to get out of the country. This isn’t anonymous tip bad, this is underground bunker.”

“What about Dale and Adam? Should I – I should call them.”

“Wait!” Ron grabs her before she can reach the phone. “Not from here. Not over the phone. Tomorrow, we go into work, we give our notices, we all go out to lunch. Tell them someplace safe, in person.”

“Right.” Lisa sits on the bed and puts her head in her hands. “That isn’t all of it. That isn’t even the _worst_ of it. That’s just…the entry level stuff. There’s more on there.”

Ron brings the laptop over. “Show me.”

 

* * *

 

The building in D.C. is huge. When the car pulls in, Ron is wearing new clothes and armed with a duffle and a security pass.

Jackson and O’Neill are each occupied with their phones – Jackson replying to emails and O’Neill playing a game.

Carter and Teal’c are in another car. When Ron had seen them this morning, they looked…different. Teal’c looked menacing without even trying, but the snarl didn’t help. Carter was ice; she looked emotionless.

For the second time in a week, Ron wonders what the fuck he's doing.

“Woolsey.”

“Hello Dr. Jackson, General O’Neill. I see you’ve brought company. A new recruit?”

“He’s for L.A.”

“I see. Would you like to come up to the office?”

Ron had thought Woolsey was a secretary or something, since he met them before they’d even got out of the car. Instead, Woolsey _had_ a secretary and resided in the giant office at the top of the building.

“Join Colonel Carter,” O’Neill says when he sees Ron standing behind him. “I’m sure she’ll find something for you to do.”

“Don’t injure him,” Jackson adds.

Carter turns on her heel and marches out. Teal’c remains outside Woolsey’s office.

“We’re going to the lower levels,” Carter says in the elevator. “I’ve got something I need to show you.”

 

Ron isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but walking into an underground spa was not it.

“This is the D.C. House,” Carter says. Her brisk walk has slowed to a leisurely stroll. “The one in L.A. is a lot like it. There’s one major difference.”

She leans over the balcony, staring into the second floor, where a number of people were just…sitting. Quietly.

“You see the girl there, with the hospital bracelet?”

He does. She’s flipping through a picture book, and looks like she could be Carter’s younger sister.

“If I die, I’ll wake up in her body. She’s my clone. There are other bodies I could use, but she would be my primary – my permanent home. Until that body dies, and I wake up in another just like her.”

Ron looks closer now, trying to see if he can recognize any of the others.

“Most of these are just average people,” says Carter, still staring at her clone. “Only the clones have the bracelets, to make sure they don’t get sent on engagements. Missions,” she clarifies, when Ron shoots her a questioning look. “And we refer to the people as actives. They’ll bring you up to speed in L.A.”

“They look like zombies.”

Carter gives him a sour grin. “Rodney doesn’t like for them to wander around too much, in case they get into something they aren’t supposed to.  It’s not so bad. In the Tokyo House they don’t move at all unless they’re on an engagement. Saves on handlers. The Moscow House is nice. A giant daycare.”

Below them, someone walks into the room of sitting people. They call out a name and one of them stands and walks over.

“Getting a treatment,” Carter says. “I’ll show you that in a minute.”

“You picked a good day,” a voice says from behind them. “Rodney isn’t here.”

Carter smiles. “Ronald Greer, meet John Sheppard. He’s the D.C. House’s chief of security.”

“Nice to meet you. Are you a new recruit?”

“For the L.A. House,” Carter says. Ron wonders how many people are going to ask that question.

“Zelenka won’t mind an audience,” Sheppard says, and motions them on. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

“I got an offer,” Lisa says from the passenger seat, darks bags under her eyes. “From the program.”

Ron keeps his eyes on the road. He considers his next words carefully. “It’s your decision,” he says, “but it’s safe to say that any job offered by them is not a job worth taking.”

“If it saves you? It’s worth it.”

“I don’t want you to-”

“ _It’s worth it_ , Ronald.”

They ride in silence. Ron passes cars that are going eighty.

“In return for my participation, they’ll stop hunting you.”

“Lisa…”

“They’ll let you go. And in five years they’ll let me go to. And it’d be like none of this ever happened.”

“Do you believe that?”

Lisa makes a vague squeaky noise. She’s crying; shit. He hates that he made her cry.

“I’m tired, Ronald. You almost got shot yesterday, because of me, because I couldn’t-”

He reaches over and grabs her hand. “I promised I’d protect you, and I will, okay? Don’t worry.”

She squeezes back, but she’s still crying like her heart is breaking.

 

He wakes up alone. Lisa’s left everything but her phone. There’s a note on the dashboard that says “Go back to work.”

He crumbles it up.

 

* * *

 

“Your grandma, huh?” Telford flips his file off the edge of the table. “What’s she have?”

“Alzheimer’s.”

Telford shoots out of the chair. Ronald doesn’t flinch.

He keeps his cool as Telford circles him, because he needs this job. Several people went through a lot of trouble to get him here, and he’s not going to blow it because of this asshole.

“You’re one of theirs, aren’t you? They couldn’t hack our security system so they sent a spy?” He gets up in Ron’s face, shouting.  “What the fuck are you here for, huh?”

“Lisa,” Ron thinks. He tightens his grip on the arms of his chair. “I thought I was here for an interview.”

“Do you really think they’d plant a handler on us?” Telford’s partner says. Ron thinks his name is Young. He picks Ron’s file off the floor and sets it to rights. “I’m more suspicious of Ramirez. Working the floor gives him too much access, don’t you think?”

Telford turns his glare on _him_. “Don’t start that again. Ramirez was a lot cleaner than this guy.”

“Too clean,” Young says. “For God’s sake David, back off this guy before he walks. He’s the best looking applicant so far.”

It’s Young who gets him the job, needling Telford into agreeing to it. Telford stalks off to go shout at someone else and Young lingers, still flipping through his file.

“You start at six on Monday,” Young says, leaning on Telford’s desk. “Stop by Harry’s desk on the way out to get a temporary badge and a parking sticker. And Greer,” he adds, when Ron’s about to step out of the room. “Say hi to your Grandma for me.”

He winks.

 

* * *

 

“I’d die for you,” he says, Lisa lying on his chest.

“Mm, are you going to be my knight in shining armor?”

He thinks about it. “I don’t do horses.”

“My gently-used knight, on his shining…Harley.”

Lisa collapses into a fit of giggles, and he fights a smile.

“I’m trying to have a moment, woman.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She tries to smooth her expression. “Okay, keep going.”

“This is the last time I try to be meaningful.”

She laughs again. “No, don’t stop; I think it’s sweet. And wherever I go you’ll follow. For the rest of our lives.”

“I’d follow you to hell and back. I mean it.”

“I know.” She kisses him long and slow. “My own brave prince.”

 

* * *

 

“You’ll be Sapphire’s handler,” they’d told him, and he’d nodded. He thought about the zombies in D.C.

But when he enters the room with the chair, it’s Lisa sitting there. She smiles at him. “Hello.”

He swallows. “Hi.”

The man who does the imprints – Dr. Rush – shoves a sheet of paper at him. “This is your script. Take her hand.”

It takes Ron half a second to memorize the contents of the sheet of paper. He focuses his eyes on Lisa’s face.

She doesn’t know him like this. Lisa is data on a hard drive somewhere. This is Lisa’s body. This is Sapphire.

But she’s beautiful, and she’s _Lisa_ all the same, and he’d die for her, die to make sure she got back to her body in one piece.

He takes her hand. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

 

* * *

 

“They’re the reason I’m part of the Pegasus project.”

“Pegasus?”

Sheppard waves his hand. “Clones.”

“Ah.”

“They’re the reason I’m here and not a corpse. It’s like they’re all two people. Flip a switch and it’s the people they tell the stories about – Carter dissects people while they’re still alive, O’Neill’s seen it all and doesn’t care, Teal’c the attack dog. But then when they’re saving you, all of a sudden they’re _people_.”

“I know what you mean.”

Sheppard grins. “I guess you would. Some of the things they’ve done are terrible; I’m not going to lie and say they aren’t. But I can’t hate them anymore. Not after the number of times they’ve saved my ass.” He stares at the ceiling, beer loosely grasped in one hand. “We only ever see our part of the puzzle. They see the whole thing. They know everything about the program, even the things they shouldn’t know. They have earpieces so advanced that it’s basically telepathy; they’re almost always running three conversations at once. They won’t tell me anything – they don’t tell anyone anything, unless they’re talking to each other – but I think they’re planning to do something huge, and they’re making sure they know where their allies are.”

Ron gives him a sharp look, but he’s still staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.

 

* * *

 

Sapphire isn’t a person – she’s a walking bucket. She is filled and emptied at the whim of the office upstairs. When she’s empty she eats pancakes and swims thirty laps and looks at pictures in books.

She’s safe. Ron made a promise, and he’s going to keep it.

She recognizes him though. She gravitates toward him when she sees him on the floor; she remembers things he tells her. And sometimes, when she needs something, she seeks him out.

“Garnet hurts.”

Ron frowns at her, trying to make sense of the non sequitur. “She’s in Nurse Bank’s office?”

Sapphire shakes her head. “She _hurts_.”

“Take me to her.”

Garnet is sitting on one of the sofas, looking perfectly fine.

“Are you sure it was Garnet?”

Sapphire stares at him with Lisa’s wide, warm eyes. “Garnet hurts.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

She blinks. “What is specific?”

“It means that I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

She leaves. He thinks that’s the end of it, until he sees that she’s come back with Garnet.

“You can make her better.”

He sighs. “How do you feel?” he asks Garnet, to satisfy Sapphire.

“Okay,” Garnet replies, but she sounds soft and unsure. She doesn’t look at him.

She’s lying. The actives shouldn’t be able to lie.

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“She hurts,” Sapphire says insistently.

“I _know_ ,” Ron says, trying to be patient. “Garnet, will you come with me to see Nurse Banks?”

It turns out that Nurse Banks is the _problem_. For the second time in his life, Ronald Greer punches a man through a window.

 

* * *

 

“Where’s Lisa?”  Volker asks, the moment he sees Ronald in the parking lot.

“I don’t know,” Ronald says. He starts pulling his supplies out of the truck. “In twenty minutes, I need you to set off the fire alarm.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something illegal.”

Volker hesitates. “Adam will be here in a minute. He can help.”

 

* * *

 

Sapphire leans against his shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess I thought he’d be the guy, you know?”

“I know.” He doesn’t, but he’ll take her word for it.

“When my treatment’s over, I’m going to eat a gallon of ice cream. With lots of fudge.”

“Sure thing.” Lisa was a vegetarian. But this isn’t Lisa; this is Annie.

“I’m glad you’re here. I mean, I trust you. And sure, if I’m being a little too familiar, you’re welcome to tell me. I just need a shoulder, and you’re here, and…” she sighs. “It’s weird. I feel like I’ve known you forever. Have you ever met someone and known in an instant that you could trust them?”

“I can’t say I have.”

“I have to tell you something.” She sits up and looks him in the eye. “I’m kind of glad Terrance broke up with me. When I met you, I – I’ve never felt like this before. Is it possible to love someone that you don’t know?”

“I think it is.”

The van stops.

“Can we get coffee after my treatment?”

She isn’t Lisa. She isn’t even a real person. But when she stares at him with Lisa’s hopeful eyes, he can’t resist her.

“Sure,” he says, in the small reprieve they have before the door opens and the slate is wiped clean. “I’ll be right here.”

She beams, and it’s like the sun is rising for the first time in years. She isn’t real; she shouldn’t be able to make him feel this way.

Her lips, when she gives him a quick kiss, are real. The hair that brushes over his arm, the hand on his shoulder. Sapphire isn’t anyone – she isn’t supposed to be. What’s wrong with him, that she makes him feel this way?

“I’ll be right back” she chirps, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Then she’s gone – vanished into the elevator. Annie will go back on her wedge. Sapphire will be empty again. Ron will be here, alone.

That’s the way it has to be.

 

* * *

 

“You shouldn’t do this.”

“I’ve got my affairs in order.”

Brody helps him set the charges. Ron doesn’t know what to say to get him to leave.

“There’s an address in Lisa’s contact book. It’s the only one with the name scribbled out. I gave it to her in case something happened, after what happened to Sarah. There’s a retinal scanner on the gate similar to the ones they have here. If you can…. The gate will open for you.”

Brody doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Maybe, if he’s lucky, Ron will meet him there.

 

* * *

 

Garnet and Sapphire follow him around like lost puppies. Every time he’s on the floor they flock to him.

Garnet isn’t doing so well, but Nurse King isn’t the problem, and there isn’t anything Ron can do.

He endures their puppy loyalty and tries not to read anything into it.

The Actives shouldn’t be able to remember things that have been wiped, but they do.

 

* * *

 

“The shiakt technology was never meant to be used in this manner,” Teal’c says, in that cool calm way of his. “It was created to heal trauma.”

“What happened?” Ronald asks.

“My people. Corruption. War.”

 

* * *

 

“-nearly eviscerated her client! This is the third time in a row she’s glitched like this.”

“-working on a solution; it’s experimental, but-”

“-should be sent to the Attic-”

“- a risk to the entire House-”

Garnet tilts her head and looks at Ronald. “They are unhappy.”

Ron sighs, glancing up at the impromptu conference happening in Rush’s lab. “Yes they are.”

 

* * *

 

Ronald leaves when the building goes up in flames. Not that it matters. They’ll find him anyway.

Brody and Volker left with everyone else. Ron hopes they’re alright.

He’s not sure where he’s headed.  Lisa’s gone; there’s no telling where. She’s the only person he has.

Maybe he’ll make his way to Brody’s secret hideaway. Then again…it wouldn’t be right, if Lisa wasn’t there.

He ends up in a motel, much like the one Lisa left him in.

He pays with his debit card. There’s no point in avoiding it anymore.

 

* * *

 

An accident on assignment leaves Garnet with a terrible scar that makes romantic engagements a questionable prospect. Nurse King commits suicide.

It works out.

The Actives go through a standard wipe that introduces them to their new nurse. They aren’t supposed to notice that Garnet’s missing.

Sapphire walks up to him after it’s done, while he’s sitting outside the nurse’s office.

“Garnet doesn’t sleep in the pods anymore.”

Of course she notices; Lisa’s always been amazing.

 

* * *

 

Ronald finds Lisa’s contact book. He hides the unnamed address in a tattoo on his thigh and burns the rest.

He trashes half the decorations in his new 'old' apartment. He exercises.

He needs this to be over.

It was easy, when he thought she was dead, to be patient and wait for the plan to come through. To wait for death, or pain, or even one last flaming burst of success. Now that he knows she’s alive, he can’t sit still.

She’ll be a zombie, a toy, motionless until some rich freak decides to play with her. She’d be someone else.

But she’d be Lisa all the same, and he’d do anything for her.

He made a promise.

 

* * *

 

“I know you,” Sapphire says. Her eyes are big and wide.

“You see me a lot,” Ronald replies, and steps around her.

Sapphire cuts him off again, one hand placed in the center of his chest. “I _know_ you.”

 

* * *

 

O’Neill has a hand pressed to the skin behind his ear. He’s doodling on a legal pad in McKay’s office, but every so often he looks up and stares at the wall, seemingly lost in thought.

Ron looks around as subtly as he can.

Carter is the only other member of O’Neill’s group in the office. Every so often she rubs a certain spot behind her right ear, not stumbling in her verbal conversation.

They’re talking, Ronald realizes. Talking _in their heads_. There’s no visible earpiece, but now that he’s paying attention he can see it, see the small shifts in their expressions that don’t fit the present conversation, the changes in posture, and always – always – the hand behind the right ear, rubbing or pressing or tapping.

There’s some kind of transmitter under their skin. He doesn’t know how it works, but he can see it clear as day. How had he missed this?

Across the table, Sheppard coughs. When Ron catches his eye, he shakes his head.

 

* * *

 

Carol is headed on a date with someone named Brad. Ronald is not looking forward to four hours in the van with just the screens and his mp3 player for company.

There’s something off, though.

“I could swear we’ve met,” Carol says, leaning too far into his personal space. “Are you sure we didn’t go to school together?”

“I’m sure.”

“You just look so familiar….”

The engagement ends early. Carol broke up with Brad two hours in.

“I couldn’t help it,” Carol says, boneless against Ronald’s side. “It didn’t seem fair to him, when I’m in love with someone else. And you…I _know_ you. And I love you so much.”

It’s stupid of him, but he drapes an arm over her shoulder anyway. She won’t remember.

 

* * *

 

Ronald manages to stay calm during his capture and his transport, but when Kinsey drops Volker’s head on the table that separates them, he loses his cool.

He knows this blinding rage, the red behind his eyes, the way sounds fade and all that’s left is the bastard sitting across from him.

His only weapons are the chairs and his bare hands. He makes good use of it all.

Kinsey is a pathetic lump of flesh on the concrete when the faceless guards pull them apart.

This is his father’s rage, this thing he feels.

They sedate him. Volker’s head has rolled into a corner.

 

* * *

 

“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion,” Rachel says, folded on the floor of the van.

A friend for a lonely geek. Ronald hates himself for being relieved.

She stops halfway through saying “the lips acquire stains”. He gives her a questioning look.

“I’m remembering things.”

He blinks. “That happens.”

“You don’t understand. There are two people in this body. There’s me, there’s Rachel, but there’s someone else here too. That other person is the one who remembers.” She takes a deep breath. “‘The mind acquires speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning’. The treatments…. I…” she presses a hand to her head. “This headache is fierce.”

“Do you want something for it?”

“Thank you.” Rachel takes her glasses off to clean them. Her sloppy ponytail drifts toward her face. “This other person. She doesn’t know how to tell you what’s happening to her, and frankly? I don’t either. It’s…strange. Scary. This, crazy double identity thing, like ‘The Enemy Within’ only it isn’t good me and animal me, it’s me and some other person. Ah!”

She curls in on herself, hands pressed against her temples. Ronald grabs her wrists to help her straighten.

“Your name is Rachel. You’re attending a convention in Los Angeles. You’re hoping you’ll find a friend there.”

“Yes,” she says, and relaxes. “Yes, that’s what I’m doing. The ticket cost me forty bucks.”

He lets her wrists go and hands her some ibuprofen and his water bottle. She takes them quietly, wiping at the wetness on her face.

He helps her fix her hair.

“You’ll remember won’t you?” She grabs his arm before he can lower it to his side. “She needs you to remember.”

“I will. I promise.”

He could never break a promise to her.

 

* * *

 

“You learn to be what they expect you to be,” Carter says. She’s shed her emotionless shell for a reassuring smile. “It gets easier.”

“I don’t think it should.”

Her smile turns wry. “It does anyway. There’s always a little screaming voice inside that tells you it’s wrong, but you have to lock it away. Then you know you won’t crack and get someone else killed, and you can find a way to cope.”

Ronald thinks about the people he’s met in D.C.. About Zelenka’s insane muttering in Czech, McKay’s worsening hypochondria, Sheppard’s lazy smile and the blueprints he kept hidden under pictures of the galaxy.

And Carter, with the “old song and dance” she’d dragged Ronald into – she and her friends.

“So I see.”

 

* * *

 

Keiko leans against him in the dark of the van. “I have a secret I’m not supposed to tell.”

“I know,” Ronald says.

He does not say “Me too.”

 

* * *

 

His “grandmother” is an old woman with a forehead tattoo concealed beneath her silk cap.

They talk about his days as a security consultant. She naps. There’s a different book by her bedside each time, and each book holds a code or a message.

There’s no obvious use for most of the codes, but he keeps them anyway, passing them off as doodles or hiding them in crosswords or Sudoku.

He’ll need them someday, just as he needs the address in his tattoo.

They want to know where their allies are.

 

* * *

 

Sarah Ichiyogi sprawls across the seat, gun on her hip. She looks Ronald up and down. “You’re cute.”

“Thank you.”

“Have we…nevermind.” There’s a sudden sharpness in her eyes. She gives the van a careful going over. If Ronald wasn’t paying close attention he wouldn’t have known.

“Do you need anything?”

“Aspirin.” She leans into his space to get it herself. She smells like leather and metal. “She’ll talk to you on the way in. Walk slowly.”

He nods, as casually as he can and gives her his water bottle.

She winks. Nothing like Lisa, nothing like Sapphire, and yet both of them at once.

“Good boy.”

 

* * *

 

Her name is Sapphire, and she is soft and gentle as the moon. She comforts the ones she sees are hurting. She provides silent support when she can. Her smiles can be soft and blank or big and striking, and she is beautiful.

She shouldn’t be a person. She’s a bucket, filled with splashes of color and emptied with a push of a button. Even a scrub can’t wash away everything; she’s building a personality for herself.

He is the tide, caught in her pull; he loves her – her innocence, her simple pleasure, her compassion. He is caught in her gravity, living on every scrap of affection she sends his way. She shouldn’t be able to do this, to catch his hand in a corridor and mouth “I love you” where the cameras can’t see, but she does, and he would do anything for her. If he could die sure in her love for him, he would die a happy man.


End file.
